Classics/Foreign Lit, 02/09, Period 2

[game-of-you.livejournal.com]

Classics: "You're due for the second of your four quizzes. Please take it, then use the rest of the class period to study or read."

The quiz consists of a brief passage from Theogony in Greek, which students are asked to translate and answer five questions about.

[OOC: Yep, tell me what grade you got.]

Foreign Literature in Translation: We will continue our wortk on Russian literature by studying the modern Russian concept of барды, or bard poetry.

Dream continues to lecture. At the end of his lecture, he gestures to some volumes of modern Russian poetry that are at the front of the class.

"Please find and present the lyrics to one such "bard" poem."

Comments

Re: Foreign lit, 02/09

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

"Um, I'm going to present Vysotsky's "The Dream"," Elizabeth said, feeling the irony.

She read clearly:

"A morbid dream obsessively weighs on me lately.
I see it only hazily. Why does it hate me?
Within it I betray and lie, fawning and crawling.
I never would have thought that I was so appalling.

I clench my fists, put on a show, cursing and damning,
Although I know, and others know, I'm only shamming.
The dream grows dim and dimmer still, I hope it's vanished.
It reappears, against my will to see it banished.

I do not stride, I mince along, acting, dissembling.
I keep in step, don't get it wrong, in fear and trembling.
I crawl to men more strong than I, I'm weak and shaken.
I loathe myself, but though I try, I can't awaken.

Here madness lies! I hear a groan. Acutely, plainly.
I hear myself, the dream's my own, I argue vainly.
I wake, and hear that groan again, the dream is finished.
I open up my eyes with pain, but fear's diminished.

As I lie prone upon the bed, the dream's before me.
Have dreams come true? This thought like lead hangs grimly o'er me.
I feel a shudder down my spine. I mutter hoarsely.
Did the dream show this soul of mine in truth, or falsely?

But it was just a dream, forsooth! How lucky for me.
Yet could that dream have told the truth in how it saw me?
Do dreams reflect thoughts from the day? It can't be true, though!
And yet, in some distorted way, they seem to do so.

And now, they'd put me to the test? I've no heart for it.
I'm just a coward, like all the rest, though I abhor it.
Conform, they say, and have no fear; they'll be forgiving.
And now I know, the dream is here. It's what I'm living."